FIEA Welcomes Its Largest, Most Diverse Class Ever

The Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA), UCF’s graduate game development program, welcomed its largest and most diverse class on August 21, 2017. Seventy-three graduate students started the program, which is designed to teach student producers, artists and programmers the high-end production processes for video games, simulation and film. This is the fourteenth class to start at FIEA, which is ranked the #2 graduate game development program in the world by the Princeton Review.

73 new students started FIEA on Aug. 21, 2017

Forty-three of the students are from Florida and 11 are from out-of-state schools like Georgia Tech, Stanford and Virginia. A record 14 international students are enrolled from countries such as Ecuador, El Salvador, Taiwan, India and China and 17 are female. The class also includes two Fulbright Scholars and 23 students who got their undergraduate degree from UCF.

Students like Kristal Nembhard, who earned her UCF degree in game design and is now coming to FIEA to become a tech artist. “Getting that chance to do something that I love and being taught and guided by the best is an experience I wanted for myself,” Kristal said. “I do realize that I chose a field that’s extremely competitive. But I do understand to make it, you must be the best, which is why I’m going to FIEA. Because there’s so much more learning that needs to be done before [entering] the real world.”

Other stats from FIEA’s 14th class:

59% of students are from Florida
19% of students are international
23% of students are female
Average GPA: 3.5
Average GRE Score: 311

FLORIDA INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT ACADEMY

FIEA is a graduate video game design school at the University of Central Florida offering an accredited master’s degree in interactive entertainment. Areas of study include game design, development, art, programming and production.